The pleasant French coteau, green in the sunshine, delights me, either
by what real mountain character it has in itself (for in extent and
succession of promontory the flanks of the French valleys have quite
the sublimity of true mountain distances), or by its broken ground
and rugged steps among the vines, and rise of the leafage above,
against the blue sky, as it might rise at Vevay or Como. There is not
a wave of the Seine but is associated in my mind with the first rise
of the sandstones and forest pines of Fontaine-bleau; and with the
hope of the Alps, as one leaves Paris with the horses' heads to the
south-west, the morning sun flashing on the bright waves at Charenton.
If there be _no_ hope or association of this kind, and if I cannot
deceive myself into fancying that perhaps at the next rise of the road
there may be seen the film of a blue hill in the gleam of sky at the
horizon, the landscape, however beautiful, produces in me even a kind
of sickness and pain; and the whole view from Richmond Hill or Windsor
Terrace,--nay, the gardens of Alcinous, with their perpetual
summer,--or of the Hesperides (if they were flat, and not close to
Atlas), golden apples and all,--I would give away in an instant, for
one mossy granite stone a foot broad, and two leaves of lady-fern.
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